Thread: Why you take pictures?

Originally Posted by Luke

Because in those rare instances when I've done everything absolutely right, it gives me great joy.

I just wish it happened a little bit more often..... the "getting everything absolutely right" part.

I wish it happened just once for me.

To have a record of things - and I'm a bit of a gear-head.

It's a 50 year old habit, and can't/ don't want to break. but it's more than that. I used to be an over-the-road truck driver, amoung other things. How many times have I seen some wonderful "something", and just wished some one had been there, so that I could say, "wow, look"! Photography let's me say "wow, look", later. When I come in from a short walk with the camera, the wife says, "did you get anything good, with the camera"? It's a love affair with beauty, kept alive with the memory catcher, the camera. Just something else to thank the Lord for.

Your words remind me of what my husband does Steve. He knows I like to take photographs so when he is on the road working he will take some for me, come home and tell me what he's gotten. Things he thinks are neat, things he thinks I would take.. it's great.

For a couple of reasons:
I like the sensory feeling of a camera in my hands;
and like Luke said, every once in a while as I go through my pictures I'll see one of my pictures that I have done everything right and gives me a feeling of accomplishment that I could have, for a brief moment, captured a moment in time with an image that I love looking at.

There is an emotional and aesthetic appeal, and a sense of creating something by carving out a particular section of a scene. I also love the sense of camera in hand, and to the eye, I think much as my Dad enjoyed the feel of his woodworking tools. An addictive, even essential, mix.

Basically I just can't help myself.

I like the tech involved and the process of saving emotions I guess.

Short answer - because I can.

And I like the challenge of getting a good picture for my wife to use as a model for her painting. Not easy.

I am also a gearhead of sorts in my dotage.

I don't really like the physical act of taking pictures. I just like walking around looking at the world and imagine what it looks like through the lens. Sometimes I will actually lift up the camera to my face and take a picture, and sometimes the mental image and the actual picture coincide. But it doesn't happen often. But I like looking at the world this way. I end up noticing all sorts of things I wouldn't have.

I take photographs to celebrate the beauty of the earth. I studied photography a little bit in college (shortly after the Civil War), but digital photography has really opened the door to full-out enjoying photography because it hs radically dropped the cost of photography and shortened the time between taking a photograph and seeing what the results are.